


44 Candles

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Hanukkah, Jewish Holidays, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Texas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-11
Updated: 2007-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a season of light, there's one missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	44 Candles

**Author's Note:**

> Over the eight nights of Hanukkah, a total of forty-five candles are lit. More information about Hanukkah may be found [here](http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm), and some very nice examples of the candles are [here](http://www.judaism.com/search.asp?nt=bZdO&sctn=009). The closing words of this story are from a children's game, described [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel).

_**Houseficlet: 44 Candles**_  
 **STATUS:** Crossposted to [](http://housefic.livejournal.com/profile)[**housefic**](http://housefic.livejournal.com/) on 12/11/07.  
 **TITLE:** 44 Candles  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **PAIRING:** OMC, glimpses of James Wilson and his family. Gen.  
 **RATING:** PG-13  
 **WARNINGS:** None.  
 **SPOILERS:** None.  
 **SUMMARY:** In a season of light, there's one missing.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** Over the eight nights of Hanukkah, a total of forty-five candles are lit. More information about Hanukkah may be found [here](http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm), and some very nice examples of the candles are [here](http://www.judaism.com/search.asp?nt=bZdO&sctn=009). The closing words of this story are from a children's game, described [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel).  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to [](http://k-haldane.livejournal.com/profile)[**k_haldane**](http://k-haldane.livejournal.com/).

 **44 Candles**

  
The little diner faced the wrong way on the Island, but that suited the man who worked there just fine. Fewer lost tourists and cruise ship vacationers to contend with when all there was to see were the smokestacks and steel-pipe cities of the oil refineries and chemical plants of Houston across the bay. People who didn't live here didn't want to see that. Hell, people who _did_ live here didn't want to see that, but it wasn't like they had much choice. The tourists, at least, could always leave. Most of the people born on the Island never left, and it was even more unusual for someone obviously not a retiree to come here and stay.

The man shifted in his chair; it was one of the three or four from the diner that they kept out front for customers who didn't want to stand while they waited for a table or booth to free up inside.

It was going to be another unseasonably hot day, with the mid-October sun pressing down and the humidity sucking the life out of you. It was okay in the shade, though. He took another pull from his cigarette and listened to his crew boss, Frankie, singing along with George Strait about Fort Worth, and after a minute he smiled. Frankie was a really lousy singer. Nevertheless, he started to tap his right foot a little in time with the music.

A big blue pickup truck passed by; the driver raised a friendly hand and the man waved back. The driver had eaten breakfast in the diner earlier that morning -- a big plate of _huevos rancheros_ , with a saucer of warm corn tortillas on the side. The driver ate breakfast in the diner every morning except Sunday, when the diner was closed. He had the same first name as the man -- David -- but his last name was Matamoros, just like the city in Tamaulipas State, although he was as American as his older counterpart.

David knew that the other David was thirty-eight, was married to a woman named Cecilia, had four kids, named Tyler, Kameron, Maria, and Porter, and was an engineer for Kerr-McGee. Sometimes David wondered if that could have been his life.

His cigarette had burned down a little, and David brushed a soft burr of ash off his white t-shirt. He smoked after his shift was over at the diner, never anytime else. It was one of the very few treats he allowed himself these days, and besides, it helped him not to smell the cloying odor of the short-order breakfasts he cooked every morning from 5 to 9 rising from his pores. Eggs, toast, grits, green chili, _migas_ , tacos, _chilaquiles_ , and, for those bloody-eyed patrons with the trembling hands in search of a hangover cure, big bowls of _menudo_. Grease and fat, coffee that had sat too long on the burner and the sticky-sweet aroma of the cheapest fake-maple syrup the manager could find. Bacon and sausage and _chorizo_ ; although David didn't eat those, he could cook them all, everything, whatever the customers wanted as he let their soft accents wash over him. The sign under the diner's name -- _El Gallito_ \-- promised **DONUTS - KOLACHES - BURRITOS** , the best compass point David had ever seen for this tiny corner of Gulf Coast Texas and its collision of three cultures. Even the three foodstuffs advertised came from different places -- the donuts from the Shipley's on the corner, the kolaches from the Czech bakery down the street. The burritos arrived in fresh batches throughout the day, until 3 p.m., when the diner closed until 5 the following morning.

David's workday actually began an hour earlier, at 4, when he'd rise in the darkness of his tiny room above the diner, pray, and tug on the jeans and white undershirt that constituted his _de facto_ uniform. He didn't bother showering -- he'd done that before going to bed, always figuring the smell of fried eggs, scrambled eggs, Eggs Benedict (he'd actually made that a few times for customers, just like one of the chefs at the big hotels on the Seawall) would all too soon overwhelm any lingering scent of Irish Spring or Old Spice.

A flicker of movement out over the bay captured his attention and he squinted. Birds -- a platoon of brown pelicans, turning over in flight and diving, disappearing beneath the water. Soon enough they popped back up again, bobbing to the surface like a set of buoyant bathtub toys. The water in the bay, like the water of the Gulf on the other side of the Island, was a muted grey-brown -- something else that surprised tourists coming here for the first time. They expected the ocean to be blue, like picture books, like the Discovery Channel, like the cool Atlantic on the Jersey Shore that David had known in his childhood. Well, it was neither blue, nor cool (it approached the approximate temperature of warm tapwater most of the year round), but it was wet and it slapped onto the public beaches in ceaseless waves, and in the end that was enough for most people.

A shadow fell over David, and he looked up. It was Frankie, just lighting up his own cigarette, shaking the match out and then grinding it underfoot.

"Litterbug," David said.

"Yeah, like you care," Frankie answered, and the two men smoked in companionable silence for a while.

"Decided yet?" Frankie asked at last, and David shook his head. Frankie squinted into the sun. "Better make up your mind," he rumbled. "Give Jack plenty of notice so he can bring in a sub."

"Right. And then I'll be out of a job."

"Nah." Frankie held his cigarette in two fingers and tapped it on the side of his chair. "For a _guero_ , you make the best _chilaquiles_ around. He'd take you back in a second."

David shrugged. "Maybe it's not that important," he said. "It's not like I've been home for any other holidays in a while."

"Still."

David waited, but Frankie didn't say anything else.

"Well, yeah, still," David said finally. "Listen, I gotta get some books back to the library."

Frankie nodded, and raised a lazy hand.

"Later," he said.

David spent the rest of the day in the small library, reading encyclopedia articles at random and using his library card number to log into one of the dozen PCs the branch kept open for its patrons.

He scanned the front page of the New York _Times_ , digitally leafed through the Trenton _Times_ and the Newark _Star-Ledger_ , and ended up, as he always did, at the Princeton _Packet_. On Tuesdays he looked at the hospital's website, but today was Thursday, which meant it was time to check his parents' site.

It hadn't changed since last week; Leo and Bette smiled out at him from the computer screen, seeming to glow with pride at the numerous links to their children and grand-children, nieces and nephews. One link, as always, blinked red, on and off, like a traffic light commanding attention. The bold black letters were stark against the crimson background.

 _DAVID_ , it said, _PLEASE COME HOME._

For a moment he contemplated clicking on it, answering the shot in the dark, but after a while he simply closed the window.

Back in his room, with the slow blue dusk falling, he thought about logistics.

The Greyhound would take two days, more or less, and if he bought a ticket fourteen days in advance it would cost around $165. The price jumped quickly though -- if he waited too long he could end up paying almost five hundred. Once in Newark, he could use the Jersey bus lines to navigate someplace close enough so that he could call one of his brothers to pick him up.

If they'd even do that. Jon probably would. Jimmy ... he wasn't so sure.

He'd not think about it for now. It was time to pray again anyway.

He covered himself with his _tallis_ , and rocked gently, finishing the ancient words with a quiet "Amen." He stayed still a moment longer, then sighed and laid the prayer shawl aside. A bright flicker caught his eye, and he looked out the window.

Across the bay, one of the big refineries was burning off natural gas. Five of the huge vertical pipes were lit, and even as he watched, another one flared to life, and then another, so that seven towering flames danced against the darkening sky. David waited, curious, to see if an eighth would blaze up, but there were only the seven.

 _Not complete,_ he thought. _There's one missing._

The flames continued to burn, and it seemed to him that he could feel the warmth of the giant candles on his face.

 _Maybe I **will** go home. Show up on the doorstep, make the old words come true -- Nes Gadol Haya Sham._

 _A great miracle happened there._

~ the end.


End file.
